The United States has signaled its support for a draft resolution in its current form on the war between Israel and Hamas, with the United Nations Security Council set to hold a vote on the proposal later Friday, diplomatic sources said.
This marked the fourth time the Security Council delayed a vote this week as diplomatic efforts were being made to get the US — a veto-wielding permanent council member — on board with the resolution.
The US had earlier vetoed a resolution on December 9 that called for a ceasefire but did not condemn Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacres in Israel in which thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 240 hostages. That resolution also did not acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself.
The wording now calls “for urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
The steps are not defined, but diplomats said, if adopted, this would mark the council’s first reference to a cessation of hostilities.
Other countries had supported text in the resolution that would include the now-eliminated call for an urgent halt to the fighting between Israel and the Hamas terror group.
Sources previously indicated that another key sticking point was a proposal for the UN to create a monitoring mechanism for aid going into the Gaza Strip, but it appeared this demand was dropped.
The resolution demands that all sides “allow and facilitate the use of all… routes to and throughout the entire Gaza Strip, including border crossings… for the provision of humanitarian assistance.”
Additionally, the resolution is expected to call for the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”
The United Arab Emirates is sponsoring the resolution, which was amended in several key areas to secure compromise and US support, according to the draft version seen by AFP.
The latest postponement came as the US, which has opposed several proposals during the resolution’s drafting this week, said it was ready to support it in its current form.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a briefing: “We have worked hard and diligently over the course of the past week with the Emiratis, with others, with Egypt, to come up with a resolution that we can support. And we do have that resolution now. We’re ready to vote on it.”
Thomas-Greenfield said it’s a resolution “that will bring humanitarian assistance to those in need. It will support the priority that Egypt has in ensuring that we put a mechanism on the ground that will support humanitarian assistance, and we’re ready to move forward.”
Other council members have said that because of the significant changes to the resolution, they needed to consult their capitals before a vote.
Israel has long opposed the use of the term “ceasefire,” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there will be no ceasefire in Gaza until the “elimination” of Hamas.
This week’s back and forth came after an impasse earlier this month when the United States, despite unprecedented pressure from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, blocked the adoption of a Security Council resolution on the war.
That resolution had called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been waging a ground offensive against Hamas following the terror group’s devastating October 7 onslaught. The US said it vetoed the measure for failing to condemn the Hamas massacres or acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself.
Last week, the UN General Assembly adopted the same non-binding resolution by 153 votes to 10, with 23 abstentions, out of 193 member states.
Bolstered by that overwhelming support, Arab countries announced the new attempt at the Security Council.
The war erupted when Hamas led some 3,000 terrorists in a devastating cross-border attack on October 7 that killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians. At least 240 people of all ages were kidnapped and taken as hostages.
Following the attack, Israel vowed to topple Hamas, launching a major aerial offensive followed by the ongoing ground campaign.
Hamas’s media office in the Gaza Strip said Wednesday afternoon that the death toll in Gaza since the start of the war had crossed 20,000. The number cannot be independently confirmed, and it doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. Hamas’s toll also includes those killed as rockets fired by terrorists fall short and land in the Gaza Strip. Israel says it has killed over 8,000 Hamas operatives in Gaza.
Israel says it is making an effort to avoid harm to civilians while fighting a terror group embedded within the civilian population. It has long accused Gaza-based terror groups of using Palestinians in the Strip as human shields, operating from sites, including schools and hospitals, which are supposed to be protected.
Meanwhile, the United Nations warned the Israel-Hamas war is pushing Gaza toward famine.
The entire population of Gaza faces “an imminent risk of famine,” according to a UN-backed global hunger monitoring system on Thursday, with more than half a million people facing “catastrophic conditions.”
“We have been warning for weeks that, with such deprivation and destruction, each day that goes by will only bring more hunger, disease and despair to the people of Gaza,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Israel’s campaign has left swaths of Gaza in ruins, and the UN says it has also displaced 1.9 million of the territory’s 2.4 million people.
Forced into crowded shelters, the displaced have struggled to find fuel, food, water and medical care. While there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel has long said that the Hamas terror group has stockpiled supplies and kept them from increasingly desperate civilians.
President Isaac Herzog averred Thursday that the United Nations has been failing to keep up with the amount of aid Israel is inspecting, and that the world body is to blame for the little amount of aid entering the Strip even after Israel has opened up its Kerem Shalom crossing to ease the bottleneck.